"Enemy attack! Night raid! Straight ahead!" The lookout's shrill warning rang out almost at the same instant as the gunshot.
Webber reacted like lightning! Almost the moment the shot rang out, he stuffed the remaining bread into his clothes, snatched up the Flintlock Rifle leaning against the wall with one hand, and grabbed an oil-soaked spare torch at his feet with the other, striking it alight with a sharp scrape of his fire striker!
"Light the torches! Shine them out there!"
Roaring, he hurled the burning torch with all his strength toward the densest cries of battle!
At the same time, the other experienced veteran soldiers and sentries on the defensive line made the same response. More than a dozen torches streaked across the night sky like meteors, landing in the open ground not far before the earthen wall. The dancing firelight instantly outlined countless Sauron soldiers charging forward like madmen, their faces twisted with savagery as they brandished sabers and hand axes. Some even clutched spark-spitting bundles to their chests!
"Eagle Cannon! Fire!"
A light four-pound Eagle Cannon positioned on a raised platform behind this stretch of earthen wall struck first! Several feet of flame burst from its muzzle with a thunderous boom, and the cannon recoiled violently! It had not been loaded with a solid shot, but with canister—more than seventy iron pellets and broken nails! A storm of death sprayed out in a fan toward the charging Sauron soldiers!
"Pfft pfft pfft pfft—!!"
The dozen or so Sauron soldiers at the very front seemed to slam into an invisible wall of steel. Their bodies convulsed violently as countless sprays of blood burst from them, and they fell in clusters with shrieks of agony! Yet those behind them seemed not to see it, trampling over their comrades' corpses